Physical exercise, and, in particular, participation in athletic activities are currently very popular forms of recreation. Furthermore, physical exercise in athletic activities are entered into by young and old alike, with age being a much reduced factor in the limitation of one's activities. Thus, a wide variety of injuries have become commonplace. These injuries are treated in a variety of ways including the use of slings, immobilizing splints or fluid absorbent materials. In addition, it is common to utilize either hot packs or cold packs, hereinafter referred to as thermal packs, to alleviate pain, reduce swelling, and/or increase blood circulation to the affected body part.
These thermal packs traditionally have been held in place either by hand, or by swathes of tape or fabric wrapped around both the thermal pack and the injured body part. The former approach, depending upon the placement of the thermal pack, is either uncomfortable or else virtually impossible, while the approach is inconvenient at best, depending upon the body part to which the thermal pack is applied. The awkwardness of the swathing method becomes even more apparent as the pack shifts position or needs to be replaced by a fresh thermal pack in order to maintain the desired temperature. In such a case, the wrap material must be unwrapped and then rewrapped, which is not only time consuming but may be extremely uncomfortable where adhesive materials are used to secure the pack. Where an elastic bandage is used to secure the pack, the compounded effect of the bandage as it is wrapped around the body and thermal pack can reduce circulation, or at best becomes uncomfortable.
More recently, specialized thermal packs have been developed which have adjustable, easy to use fasteners. These thermal packs come in a variety of sizes and shapes and are configured to treat a specific injury area. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,628,932 is a thermal pack used solely for application to an injured knee. This invention maintains a void in the area of the knee-cap in order to prevent cold temperatures from long term contact with the patella. While the specificity of these ice packs aids in the treatment of the injuries, significant difficulties are encountered as one attempts to forecast the type of injuries to be incurred and then seeks to have a sufficient variety of thermal packs available to meet this need. This situation is especially acute in high schools and the like where funding is often limited, and it is, therefore, sometimes financially impossible to purchase a sufficient quantity of these high priced, injury specific, thermal packs to meet the needs of those injured. Furthermore, most school athletic departments and recreational sports facilities seldom have sufficient storage space to stock, and freeze a wide variety of these packs. Thus, when injuries do occur, they are often treated with rudimentary, makeshift materials which are significantly less effective. This of course prevents the most effective treatment at the onset of the injury, which is generally the most crucial time period, thus allowing the injured to worsen, and prolonging the recovery time. Furthermore, even schools which do have an array of thermal packs may find themselves without a sufficient supply due to a plurality of similar injuries each requiring the same particularly configured thermal pack.
In addition to the difficulties encountered with injury specific thermal packs, thermal pack holders are generally limited in the number and type of thermal pack compartments utilized, thereby limiting their versatility in application to the specific injury sites. Furthermore, such packs are generally held in place by straps which wrap around the user and are reattached to the thermal pack holder. The straps must generally be secured in a particular fashion which further limits the variety of applications possible with such packs. Often, even the most simple modifications of a holder requires realignments and twisting of the straps to secure the holder in place. Since these general holders are not versatile enough to obtain the required configurations, the holder is often not sufficiently secure and the awkward wrapping is such that the user is caused additional discomfort.
Because injuries can occur to large areas such as shoulders, backs and the like, as easily as they can to elbows, and other smaller areas, various size thermal pack holders are desirable. However, the inability of present devices to accommodate both large and small injury areas while at the same time conforming to the injury site for maximum heat transfer has resulted in the aforementioned proliferation of injury specific thermal packs.
The subject invention seeks to provide the versatility required to treat different sized injury areas while providing a method for securing the thermal pack holder so as to maintain sufficient contact with the injured area, with the device conforming to the injury site.